


Fill in the Blank

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester - Freeform, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 11:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4057855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benny comes back from Purgatory to stay in the bunker. It's unclear whether or not that's a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fill in the Blank

It seeps into him every day, filling him up to the brim until it feels like he just can’t take it. But he has to.

He has to share a bunker with the man he is the most jealous of. 

Dean looks at the guy with faith, with _affection_ , with _welcome_ , and Sam catches himself pacing his blank canvas of a room that he still can’t bring himself to do anything with because _that should be him_. There was a time where it _was_ him, sort of. Not as easy, as kind as this, though, and it _rankles._

Benny has tried to talk about Dean, but Sam can’t, he really can’t. If he opens up, the floodgates will fail and all three of them will drown in Sam’s misery that he’d love to blame Dean for, but Dean never walks away from any situation anything less than squeaky clean, even from the water that beats against the tall floodgates inside the tallest Winchester.

Sam scrubs at Benny’s dirty dishes, resenting “meal time”, like somehow it could possibly mean they’re a unit when they’re really a Purgatory-bred twosome and an awkward third wheel just dying to do something that matters, to be looked at as useful. He’s supposed to pretend they’re a _team_ , and it’s so disgusting he’s washed the taste of the thought out of his mouth with whisky more than once.

“Sam?”  


Sam jumps, reading a book in the dim light of the library. “What?” he responds, just slightly cool enough to hate the way he sounds. 

He sounds as ready to reclaim his old title as he is, he sounds as bitter and blank and paintless, pointless.

Benny sighs. Sam does care, then, for a moment. He wonders what Benny will say, prepared to hear more about Purgatory-Famous Dean Winchester.

“Thanks. For convincin’ me to try life on Earth again.” 

Had he? Sam’s death grip on the book loosens and he almost feels like he’s breathing, almost feels like a person.

“It was the right thing to do,” he shrugs. It was what Dean had wanted. That always ended up being some brand of “right”, no matter what.  


After a searching glance, Benny walks away, and Sam feels lonelier than before. He wonders if it would have changed anything if he’d just said, “You’re welcome.”

***

Welcome, though. Benny should know he’s welcome. To the kitchen and the dishes, to the spare room with the door closer to Dean’s than Sam’s own is, to _Dean_  and his _exclusionary heart_.

“Just wanted to get some decoratin’ tips,” Benny calls, looking around Sam’s room. “Never mind, though.”  


Sam bites back the cursing, the insults, the feral growl within him. He can’t even get _that_ far. He can’t ask for advice; he’s too stubborn and too jaded. Benny wins. Benny gets another prize that could have been Sam’s when Sam was the only one in the running. “Sounds like you’re in the same situation, so I guess you can’t talk,” Sam replies, somehow sounding collected.

“If you figure it out, let me know,” Benny says, gone again, leaving his absence to spread itself out across the empty door frame.   


***

Benny drinks too. They find themselves drinking together in the kitchen while Dean recovers from a set of stitches because somehow that’s less embarrassing than doing just about anything else in front of Benny.

Somehow, Sam ends up with a pan in each confused hand, saying, “He made me a sandwich once, and then you came, and he doesn’t anymore.”

He’s _mourning_  a _sandwich_ , along with all the other losses, and he lets the pans fall to the floor, not throwing them, just letting go, and he just _stares_  at Benny, eyes boring holes in search of rich knowledge, in search of understanding he could make an investment out of.

“I just want my brother back,” he finds himself saying, Benny standing, approaching, slow, then all at once. They’re close enough they could hug if the universe was into Sam’s comfort, even stolen, bitter comfort, but it’s really not.  


“I don’t know why he’s so into doing stuff with me.” Benny’s eyes are clear, his gaze pointed and tired. “But I got no one else.”  


Sam heaves a sigh, leans back a little til he can rest against the counter. 

Benny’s fingers twitch for a moment, the hand lifts, almost reaches for Sam but really doesn’t get close before it gives up. 

“I can’t even pretend anymore,” Sam grits out through the tears. “I can’t. He chose you more than he ever chose me.”  


“He’d kill me if he had to. You already know that.” Benny’s embarrassed.  


“To hold it over me!” Sam’s voice is loud. Benny’s transfixed, reevaluating a little, holding back his surprise best he can.  


“You could have been anybody!”  


Benny flinches. “I know. I see that.” Sam pauses, flinching too. Benny’s draining out, becoming blank and paintless. “I get that now.”

“You’re. You’re _not_  just anyone, though,” Sam backtracks, if the track’s still even there. “You’re pretty good, okay? Loyal. Decent. Grateful. Stuff.”   


Benny kicks one of the pans aside, and it skids across the floor briefly. “Neither of you really cares. I’m the kid in the divorce. I’m the toy you can fight over, only... _you_  don’t even care.” His eyes are deep, devoid of deceit. Sam can see into them because the words mirror his own sentiments from when he was a child.

Sam reaches out with two hands. He makes them find Benny, he breaches the gap he shouldn’t even be acknowledging. “No,” he says. “You’re right, I didn’t. But I can.” Benny stares blankly, a mirror with an observer behind trying to see Sam react without his influence.

“I’m sorry you know Dean. I’m sorry you’re here.”  


“Your words _did_ mean somethin’,” Benny says, a little gruffly. “Sam....”  


“Not...on Earth,” he says firmly. “I’m sorry you’re. With Dean.”  


“Why doesn’t he care about you like he should?” Benny asks, like he’s confused, like being a vampire for so long didn’t offer any insight in the way of people like Dean.  


“Because he’s Dean,” says Sam squeezing a little with his hands for emphasis. “Get out of here.”  


“I don’t have anyone else.”  


“I’ve tried talking to him.” Sam’s eyes take on a strange glint. It’s a topic he’s only mentioned to others very briefly. “I’ve said he needs to show how he feels. He can’t.”  


“Maybe, between the two of us...?” Benny looks up at Sam.   


Sam feels putrid hope’s slimy crawl all the way up his throat, all the way onto his tongue. The festeringly loyal spark of Dean appreciation causes him to nod, causes him to say, “Maybe then.”

The pans are still there on the floor in the morning when Dean wants some breakfast. They have a presence of their own, encouraging, inviting ruination of a higher degree.

Dean mutters about the state of the kitchen, picking them up. He can’t change the fact that they fell, that Sam dropped them with intent. 

He can’t change much of anything at all. 

In that, the three of them are a team.


End file.
